


Dance

by VampireBadger



Series: Forewarned is Forearmed [4]
Category: Persona 4, Persona 5
Genre: Akira does not like dancing, Gen, Persona 4: Dancing All Night, Which is too bad because have you seen the name of this game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24765523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampireBadger/pseuds/VampireBadger
Summary: The summer after Akira's first year in Inaba--the year of fighting Shadows in TVs and learning what it means to be a Trickster--he finds out that sometimes fighting isn't the only way to deal with Shadows.Sometimes, there's dancing.(Covering Persona 4: Dancing all Night)
Series: Forewarned is Forearmed [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767610
Comments: 33
Kudos: 363
Collections: Marigolds Discord Recs





	Dance

**Author's Note:**

> This is blatantly self indulgent but Dancing All Night is probably my favorite Persona spin-off game so now you all get 10,000 words of dancing at Shadows :p

The first time Akira asks for permission to take the train up to Tokyo with the rest of the Investigation Team to see Yu, Dojima says no.

"But it'd only be one day before you come up with Nanako," Akira argues.

"You can make a lot of trouble in one day," They're in the kitchen, cleaning out the bits in the fridge that have been sitting there for weeks or months without being touched. There are a lot of take out containers that have jellified or calcified or... done other gross things, and _maybe_ Akira should have picked a different time to bring this up.

But it's too late to back out now, so he digs his heels in more. "I promise I wouldn't get into any trouble," he says. "Please?"

Dojima snorts in answer. "Akira," he says. "Don't make promises you can't keep. We both know you can't keep that one."

And because it's true, Akira stops arguing. For now, at least--he'll bring it back up later, but for right now he lets the conversation go back to the disgusting contents of the back of the fridge.

"Maybe one of us should learn how to cook," he says glumly, holding a transparent container up to the light. "I think this is from before Yu went back to Tokyo."

"It can't be," Dojima says. "That was in March. It's June now."

"I know," Akira agrees, and sticks his finger in for a tentative taste.

His stomach rebels immediately, and he goes to bed early that night.

-//-

The second time he asks, he tries a different tactic.

" _Everyone_ else is going to be there," Akira says. It's early evening, with rain coming down hard outside. Tonight, Akira knows, he'll go upstairs to his bedroom and stare into an empty TV at midnight. Nothing will happen, because the Midnight Channel has been over and done with since December. But he's going to check anyway. Just in case. "If you're worried about me getting in trouble, there's going to be other people around. Yukiko's responsible. And Yosuke."

"Teddie will be there," Nanako says, looking up from her homework. Akira gives her a wide eyed _that's not going to help!_ look.

"They're going up there early because they're going to practice for that concert... thing they're doing," Dojima says. "They're not going to have time to watch you."

Akira switches course immediately. "I'm in middle school," he says. "I don't need to be watched."

Dojima sighs. "Akira," he says. "Even if you go up there a day earlier with the rest of them, they're going to be so busy practicing for that concert, they won't have time for you to be hanging around."

Akira makes a face at the mention of the concert, but decides not to make a comment about it because it's not going to help his case. Rise's got her big returning-to-being-an-idol concert over the summer, the 'Love Meets Bonds' festival. As part of the theme, she's got all her friends, Yu and the Investigation Team, coming to dance with her for one of the songs.

She _had_ asked Akira, too, but Akira does not want to go back to being made fun of at school, and had immediately said thank you but no thank you.

"I know," he says. "But--"

"Why do you want to get up there so badly?" Dojima asks. "Honestly. I know you don't like Tokyo, so why do you actually want to go spend more time there than you have to?"

He considers lying, but he's tried everything he can possibly think of except for the truth, so maybe it's time to give him that. "I figured I could use the day while they're all busy to go out and see Yusuke," he says, and braces himself for the reaction. The last time he'd gone to see Yusuke in Tokyo, he'd brought him back to Inaba and then a week later his sensei had come down to _drag_ him back to the city with him.

Since then, they've only been able to write letters, or make the occasional phone call when Yusuke can manage it without his sensei noticing. It would be really nice to get to actually hang out with him.

"Okay," Dojima says.

What? "Seriously?" Akira asks him.

"I'm sure I'll regret this," Dojima says. "But I have a feeling that even if I said no, you'd find a way to get away and see him anyway. At least this way I know you're there, and if you-- _when_ you get into trouble, I hope you'll call me, and ask for help."

"Thank you," Akira says.

"Just try to make sure it's not too _much_ trouble," Dojima says.

It's a compromise Akira can live with. "Deal," he says.

-//-

(Over the next few weeks, Dojima watches Akira getting ready for the trip up to Tokyo, and wonders if he's making a mistake. On one hand, he can be incredibly responsible, shouldering the burden of helping and protecting people even when it puts himself in danger. At other times, he is as irresponsible and prone to trouble as any other thirteen year old. Possibly more so. It really could go either way)

-//-

Time passes, with agonizing slowness, until the week of Rise's concert finally arrive.

Yu had left Inaba four months ago, and it's amazing how long those four months feel. Sure, he's been back to visit. He'd been back for Golden Week, but that had been in April. Ages ago. Since then, his life has been...

Boring.

Really, really boring.

He lives with his parents, in a nice but small apartment. He goes to a good high school--the same one where he'd spent his first year before going away to Inaba in the first place. He eats lunch with old friends that seem distant after all the time they've spent apart, and all the things they hadn't been a part of, and couldn't possibly understand. After classes he goes to cram school, then back to that quiet apartment to work on his homework or call friends back home.

Back in Inaba.

And then one day Rise had called him about the concert, explained that everyone would be coming back to Tokyo, and asked if he would maybe like to be part of it too.

He'd said yes before she could even finish asking the question, and spent almost all of his free time ever since practicing the dance moves she'd assigned him. Sometimes he uses the gym at school, if none of the sports teams are using it, or else sometimes he meets Rise at the studio so they can practice together. It is... _very_ weird to just start walking in there two or three times a week, ask for _Risette_ at the front desk, and just be allowed to walk back to the dance studios. He doesn't think he'd like to do it all the time, but for a concert that she's got all of their friends dancing in, he feels pretty okay with it.

The day before everyone's set to come up and join them for a last few days of practice, Yu rides the train from school to the studio, where both Rise and Naoto--in the city after finishing up on a case--are waiting for him.

They practice together. They meet some of the other idols working out of the same agency as Rise. They gossip a little, and they talk about the rumors of a haunted video online that supposedly shows a dead idol. They stay up late, practicing and talking and finally, when midnight comes, logging onto the concert's website to watch that mysterious video.

Which is when they find out that yes, actually, the video is haunted, because it pulls them into something called the Midnight Stage. It's a little bit like the TV World, because it's clearly not the real world, and they can summon their Persona there. It's different, on the other hand, because there's something in the world that's stopping them from fighting. Instead, when they need to get through Shadows, they have to dance.

"Okay," Yu says, when they've _danced their way_ through a horde of Shadows and been unceremoniously dumped back into the studio. "That is--" He takes a deep breath, tries to figure out how he feels about everything that just happened, and realizes that he's not even surprised. Tomorrow, the whole team is going to be back together. Anything less than a reality spanning mystery to sink their teeth into would have felt like a waste of their time.

"It's a really good thing everyone's coming tomorrow," he says, and all three of them laugh like this is a relief instead of a burden.

-//-

July comes, and Akira finds himself waiting at the train station with Yosuke, Chie, Yukiko, Kanji, and Teddie, with the promise of seeing both Yu _and_ Yusuke within the next twenty four hours.

He's excited.

"Akira," Yukiko says, breaking away from a conversation he hasn't really been listening to. "Are you sure you don't want to be in the dance with the rest of us?"

"No way," Akira says firmly. "What if someone at school _saw_?"

Yukiko smiles. "You can't be embarrassed," she says. "It'll be fun! And anyway, I bet a lot of your classmates would be excited about it."

Akira makes a complicated expression. It's not just that it would be embarrassing, even though that's a big part of it. He's pretty sure his days of being bullied at school are over, but not _completely_ sure. What if this would be enough to set it off again? And anyway, the more important problem is that it'd be on TV, where absolutely anyone could see it, and something in Akira--the part of him that had spent months and months running around and hiding from Shadows instead of facing them head on--is not just embarrassed but kind of afraid to be so easily seen.

Maybe a little bit of what he's feeling shows on his face, because Yukiko is kind and doesn't push. Instead she asks him about school, and whether some of the teachers she remembers from when she was in middle school are still there, and Akira relaxes as the conversation moves on to safer subjects.

The train ride is nice, even though it takes forever and they have to change lines more than once. The last couple time Akira's been on long train rides, they'd been... not great circumstances. In November, he'd ridden the train from Tokyo to Inaba with Yusuke, to get back into the TV World and save Nanako. He'd been panicking over telling Yu the truth, and terrified that Nanako was about to die.

The time before that, he'd been riding into Inaba for the first time, running from his parents' deaths, and with no idea that there was something _good_ waiting for him at the end of the ride.

So it's nice to get to ride the train for something fun, for once. They talk about Tokyo, mostly. and what it'll be like to visit. Yosuke wonders if they could go through the TVs there like they do in Inaba. Akira knows from Yusuke that the answer is no, except for the one TV that Lavenza had opened up for him.

"It's weird," Chie says. "But I kind of feel like... I already knew that the TVs in Tokyo would be different. You can kind of feel it when you leave Inaba, you know what I mean?"

"Yea," Akira admits. "A little." Because he _can_ feel it, as the train speeds farther and farther away from Inaba. A kind of settling, and things getting more real. Arsene is still (always) in his mind, but he quiets as they leave the town behind.

"It's like the fog changed it," Yukiko says thoughtfully. "It never felt like this before."

"It did get sucked halfway into the TV World," Yosuke says. "Maybe nothing stays the same after that."

"Or maybe," Akira says. "Inaba's special."

And if a couple of the others look at each other over his head with expressions that say _aw, kids_ , he doesn't even mind (much), even though he's in middle school now and not a kid at all. It's true, Inaba _is_ special, and that's what matters.

The entire rest of the trip is spent on a serious discussion about how many good places to eat there must be in

There's another transfer to make after finally getting to Tokyo. They get off a train into a station that Akira swears is almost the size of all of Inaba all by itself.

He'd called Yusuke before leaving home, and made plans to meet up with him. Yusuke had been uncharacteristically careful with his directions, maybe remembering how confused Akira had been the last time he came to Tokyo, and Akira had committed them to memory. It's only one transfer and then three stops to where they're meeting up, not really all that far at all. Akira has money for train fare, and he has his cell phone and everyone's numbers just in case.

"You're sure you know where to go?" Yosuke asks. 

He's asked four times already. Akira's pretty sure that either Dojima or Yu or both of them had asked Yosuke to keep an eye on him.

"Yea," Akira says. 

"And you know how to get to the studio to meet up with us after?"

"Yep," Akira says again. "Can I...?" He's itching to go already.

"Come on, Yosuke!" Chie calls from halfway down the next platform. A few people glance in her direction as she hops impatiently from one foot to the other, but Tokyo isn't Inaba, and instead of everyone staring at her, she's just one more strange person in a strange crowd. "We're gonna be late!"

"I'm coming!" Yosuke calls back. "Akira, I guess we'll see you later."

"Have fun with your dance practice," Akira says. "Tell Yu I said hi."

"Will do," Yosuke says. He takes a couple steps back, then hesitates. "You know, if you and Yusuke wanted to come back for part of the practice--"

Akira makes a face.

"I know," Yosuke says. "I know, you don't like dancing. But even if you guys just want to hang out, I'm sure Rise could get you in. And Yu'd want to see you."

"I want to see him too," Akira says. "But Yu doesn't have a curfew and a sensei that hates me, so I just want to see Yusuke first."

Yosuke snorts. "Okay," he says. "Yea, that guy's... yea. Well, we'll see you after, then."

Akira waves, and dashes off in the other direction. It's not much of a run--he only gets about thirty or forty feet away before the crowds force him to slow down. He pauses, and looks back, and the others are already completely out of sight in the crowds. 

For just a second, Akira hesitates. But... he's not a kid anymore. He's in middle school now, he's almost thirteen. Also he's fought Shadows for _months_ now, navigating Tokyo can't possibly be that hard.

He tells himself firmly that this is true, then pushes his glasses a little farther up his nose, and walks toward his train.

  
-//-

Yusuke doesn't really have a reason to be at school in the middle of the day during summer break. On the other hand, since it's a fine and performing arts school, and since some of the facilities stay open even over breaks so that students can work on art-related summer homework, it's a passably convincing excuse. Sensei had only nodded vaguely when Yusuke announced he had to work on a project at school today, and so off he'd gone to meet Akira.

Akira, of course, does _not_ have a good reason to get into Yusuke's school, so instead of actually heading inside, Yusuke sits on a bench just inside the gates, pulls a sketchpad, and starts working while he waits. He's been drawing nothing but Shadows lately, and he keeps up with that now. The adventures in the TV World might be over, but Yusuke's not done with trying to get it all down on paper yet. It's not something he ever wants to forget, so today he starts working on a sketch of a crowd of them oozing their way out of a thick bank of fog.

He's so wrapped up in this that he doesn't realize he's not alone until Akira sits down next to him. 

"Hi," Akira says.

"Hello," Yusuke answers.

And then both of them start talking at the same time, too excited to slow down or even do a very good job of listening. They haven't been able to just spend time together outside of an emergency since last summer--even talking has gotten hard, because Yusuke doesn't have a cell phone and his sensei has figured out why he keeps loitering around the house phone.

His sensei does _not_ like Akira, and nothing Yusuke can think of to say makes it any better. He's not going to explain about Persona and the TV World, because... because he's not really sure why, actually. After all, Akira and Yu had told Dojima everything, and that had worked out fine. Yusuke's sensei is an artist, not part of the police, and so he _should_ be even more understanding.

But whenever Yusuke tries to convince himself of this, he thinks about his sensei dragging him back to Tokyo after Akira recruited him to help rescue Nanako. It wouldn't have mattered then what Yusuke's reasoning was. His sensei had just been mad, at Yusuke for running away, at Akira for being a so-called bad influence, at Inaba just for existing, at _everyone_.

And then there are the other things--the parts of his sensei that Yusuke is only just starting to really understand--that make him very, very reluctant to explain about TV Worlds and Shadows. 

"Akira," Yusuke says, suddenly serious. "Can I talk to you about something?"

"We are talking," Akira points out.

"I mean about something serious," Yusuke says, and Akira's smile vanishes. His glasses, which usually do a pretty good job hiding his eyes and making his expression impossible to read, flash in the sunlight as Akira tilts his head to one side. The glare off the lenses fades, opening him up like he's just taken off a mask. He nods.

"Did something happen?" he asks.

Yusuke screws his face up, not exactly sure how to answer the question. _Has_ something happened? He's not sure. He suspects that it has, but no one will talk to him about it directly. He just hears things. There had been an argument with his sensei and some of the other students a month ago, and of course he'd noticed similarities in the past, but...

"I think my sensei is stealing work and telling people he did it himself," Yusuke says. He kind of half mutters it out of the corner of his mouth, because he is... ashamed? He thinks ashamed is the right word for it. Stealing someone else's art is... it's _dirty_. It would be like--like...

He grasps for the right words but doesn't know them. He isn't sure there _is_ a worse crime than stealing someone else's art. Maybe, _maybe_ murder--

(Alright, yes, definitely murder, he can grudgingly admit)

But art is personal. Art is putting everything you have on a canvas and letting the whole world see it. _Stealing_ that is--

"Yusuke?" Akira asks, and Yusuke realizes he's been thinking for a while.

"Sorry." He shifts awkwardly. "I just--thought he was better than that."

"Has he been taking what you draw?" Akira asks.

"No," Yusuke says. "He's mostly interested in the older students that come to him. I don't think..." He wants to think that the reason his sensei has never tried to take his work from him is that he cares for him in a way that's special and different from just student and teacher. His sensei had _raised_ him. He just doesn't think it's the truth. "I don't think I'm good enough yet for him to want to take what I'm making yet."

"I like your drawings," Akira says loyally. "And Nanako still has all the ones you made of the Shadows in the TV World."

"But there's a _difference,"_ Yusuke says. "Anyone that knows anything about art could tell that I don't know that much yet." He will someday, because he's known for as long as... as long as he's been _breathing_ that he's going to be an artist. And where it used to make him excited to know that he's going to get better and better, now there's a sick feeling in his gut. He knows he will get better, and he knows that the things he makes are going to be taken away.

"Okay," Akira says. "I believe you." He's frowning now. "So what are you going to do about it?"

Before Yusuke met Akira, he wouldn't have done anything. He would have closed his eyes and convinced himself that anything his sensei was doing was okay _because_ it was his sensei doing it, and anyway what can a thirteen year old actually do to stop an adult from doing whatever he wants? But now he has a Persona, he's fought all kinds of things that kids are not supposed to be able to fight. He helped save Nanako from the adult that kidnapped her into a TV. He knows now that he can do things.

He knows that he wants to.

"I'm not going to ever let him take anything I make and say that it's his," Yusuke says firmly. 

"Good," Akira says.

"And--" But here, a little of his confidence ebbs away. He doesn't know exactly what he can do to help anyone _else_.

Akira's phone buzzes, and he looks down at it and hesitates. 

"Who's that?" Yusuke asks.

"It's Yosuke," Akira says. "But it's probably not a big deal, he's being kind of a mother hen about this whole trip. He probably just wants to make sure I found you okay." He hits ignore and shakes his head. Yusuke feels sort of relieved--it's selfish, because he knows Akira probably wants to go see Yu too, but he's been holding all this in for a while. Now he just wants to talk.

"We'll figure something out," Akira says, with absolutely typical determination, and so they just... keep on talking.

-//-

"Akira's not picking up," Yosuke reports, as the call goes to voicemail. "I guess he's probably too busy with Yusuke to hear the call."

Yu--who has been answering questions about what he, Rise, and Naoto were pulled into the Midnight Stage--makes a face. "He's going to be mad he missed this," he says. "But I don't think we can really wait for him."

Right. Because of this Midnight Stage full of Shadows, in a world that won't allow any violence, but where they can stop Shadows through _dancing_. 

Chie must be thinking about the same thing, because she says, "Well, he's not really into any of the dancing anyway."

"But we've been doing tons of practice!" Kanji says. "We got this!"

This leads to a general cheer, and the conversation moves back to what they're going to do and how.

(It's only hours later, when they're in one of the dance studios, that a swarm of yellow ribbons come flying out of nowhere to suck them them into the other world with the Midnight Stage)

-//-

Dojima has not heard from either of the boys since just after Akira got to Tokyo, when he got a text that just said _got to Tokyo in one piece_. Since then it's been complete radio silence, which makes him feel simultaneously worried and annoyed. Yu of course isn't obligated to keep him in the loop about his activities now that he's back to living with his parents, but Akira _knows_ he's supposed to keep in contact.

So, when he and Nanako come up to Tokyo the next day--they're overdue for a vacation, and Nanako had been excited for the trip and for the tickets they'd gotten to the concert, so here they are--Dojima stops as soon as they're in the city proper and off the train to make some phone calls. He calls Yu first, because Yu is the responsible one, and he expects his nephew to pick up.

He does not.

Considerably _more_ worried now, and not really expecting an answer, he calls Akira. He's already mentally preparing the voicemail he's going to leave (something along the lines of _Tokyo isn't Inaba, please don't just run off and disappear_ ) (or, maybe, something along the lines of _call me back, I'm worried_ ) when Akira picks up.

"I'm _really_ sorry I didn't call last night," he says, without any preamble, and in a voice that's barely a whisper.

Dojima is really just relieved that Akira had picked up at all, which makes him slightly more inclined to be understanding than he might have been normally. "I haven't heard from you since you got to the City," he says, tone neutral. "Did something happen?"

Akira doesn't answer right away. Instead there's some rustling from the other end of the phone line, then the sound of what might be a window opening, and (Dojima sighs and closes his eyes) Akira climbing through it.

"What's wrong?" Nanako asks. Dojima opens his eyes, tries to rearrange his expression into something less worrying.

"Your brother is climbing out of a window," he says dryly.

(He doesn't catch, not until several seconds later, what he's said. Apparently, when you agree to open your house to a teenager indefinitely, when you start to think of them as someone you're responsible for raising, _apparently_ these are the kinds of terms that slip out)

Nanako either doesn't notice, or takes it in stride. Her eyes go wide, and she asks, "Whose window?"

"Good question," Dojima says. The sounds of climbing and rustling have stopped, so he repeats the question into the phone. "Akira," he says. "Whose window did you just climb out of?"

"Yusuke's," Akira says. His voice is at a normal volume again. "And I know I was supposed to meet up with everyone else last night--"

"Yes," Dojima says pointedly. "You were."

"But me and Yusuke were talking," Akira says. "And it was important and we lost track of time, and by the time we realized how late it was, I thought it would be better to stay with him than try to take the subway by myself."

This is a good point, and honestly Dojima _would_ rather have Akira somewhere safe overnight than know that he's wandering the Tokyo subway system late at night. "Alright," he admits. "But if something like that happens again, I want you to _tell_ me."

"I will," Akira promises. 

"Good. Now explain why you just climbed through Yusuke's window."

There's silence for a few seconds. Then Akira admits, "Yusuke's sensei doesn't like me so I snuck in instead. Everyone's still asleep and I didn't want to wake them up because I was talking to loud on the phone."

"So... you went out the window."

"He's on the ground floor," Akira says, in a tone that says very clearly he knows this is not a good excuse. "Um. But I'm actually really close to the studio, and Yusuke's going to help me take the train over before it gets too crowded."

Dojima makes a snap decision. "Okay," he says. "Do that. Nanako and I are heading there too-- _please_ don't take any detours or find any more trouble on the way."

"Aren't we going to the hotel first?" Nanako asks.

"Did something happen?" Akira says, at the same time. "You sound like something happened."

"Have you heard from Yu since yesterday?" Dojima asks.

"No," Akira says. "Yosuke called me yesterday but I missed it, and I think it was just to make sure I got where I was supposed to be. I didn't hear from Yu at all. Why?"

"Because I haven't heard anything either," Dojima says. "I don't want to jump to the conclusion that something's wrong, but he's usually much more responsible about keeping in contact."

"Yea," Akira says. "He is." His voice is quieter, and smaller, and Dojima can tell that despite everything he'd just said about not wanting to jump to conclusions, Akira has _leaped_ to the conclusion that something happened.

"Everything will be fine," Dojima says, so unconvincingly that Nanako starts to look worried too. He decides his best route here is probably to get off the phone before he ends up with two worried kids, and nothing reassuring to say to either of them. "I'll see you there, Akira."

"I'll come as fast as I can," Akira says, and hangs up. Hopefully he won't be upset enough now to get himself caught by Madarame. Dojima has already been on the receiving end of his angry phone calls enough times to never want it to happen again.

Dojima hurries Nanako along to the next train, keeping tight hold of her hand when it seems like she's getting distracted and looking to wander off. 

It's a relief when they get off at the stop near Rise's studio, and find Akira already there waiting. Yusuke's with him, which is also not really a surprise, and Dojima makes a mental note not to pick up calls from unknown numbers for the foreseeable future. He's almost positive that Yusuke had not told his guardian he's here, and while he normally would have had more sympathy for that, Madarame is a complete pain in the--

"Dad?" Nanako says. "You okay?"

He'd lost focus. "Fine," he says. "Everyone ready to go in?"

"I _really_ didn't think Yu would be the one that got lost this week," Akira admits as the kids start moving. "I definitely thought it would be me."

Dojima gives a snort of laughter and gestures for both kids to follow him. "That makes two of us then," he says, and finally heads inside.

-//-

Akira doesn't know exactly what he'd been expecting the inside of the production studio, but it's almost disappointing how ordinary it looks. Clean and modern and all that, but it's just a boring building mostly filled with secretaries and producers. There's not a lot of people like Rise, singers or idols or whatever, which Akira kind of would have thought they'd see.

And it turns out that yes, actually, there's a reason for that, and the reason is because a whole _bunch_ of the idols that are supposed to be here have been sucked up into some kind of glowing portal by a bunch of ribbons.

  
A nervous girl in an overlarge T-shirt and glasses that hide her face almost as well as Akira's hide his, explains everything to the four of them. She'd insisted, when she heard Dojima was a police detective. "We were all together," she says. "And then this... portal just appeared out of _nowhere_ , and wrapped everyone else up, the other members of my singing group and Risette and her friends, everyone! It dragged them in, and--" Her eyes, which had already looked red, now start to water as well. "And I _know_ that sounds crazy, but I promise it's real."

Nanako pulls on Akira's elbow. "That doesn't sound like Shadows or anything," she whispers.

"It doesn't," Akira whispers back. "But maybe it's just something we haven't run into yet." It might just be wishful thinking, to hear about something like this and automatically assume that it has something to do with the TV World. But if those ribbons had snatched up all the Persona users that were here at the time, doesn't it kind of make sense that it would all be connected?

"I really am telling the truth," the girl says quietly. Akira had heard someone say that her name is Kanami and that she's an idol, like Rise, but she just seems so much quieter and less confident that it's hard to believe. She just looks like a normal person who's seen something weird and know she's scared. "I know how it sounds, but... don't you think there are things that just can't be explained?"

"I've run into a thing or two like that," Dojima says dryly, and he turns to look at Akira. "What do you think? Does any of this sound familiar?"

"No," Akira has to admit. "Not exactly--I've never heard of those ribbon things, and if it was really the same as before, it would have been connected to a TV and not just a random portal."

"Maybe there are more ways to get in and out," Yusuke says thoughtfully. "Or someone with a Shadow that just really likes ribbons."

"Maybe," Akira says. "We could try and find out some more information..." He trails off as he says this, not because he isn't willing to try and find out more, but because he's not sure if Dojima is going to be at all okay with them running around the studio trying to find a way through a magic ribbon portal that might or might not be connected to Shadows.

"Whatever's going on," Dojima points out. "Yu and his friends are very capable of taking care of themselves."

"But," Akira says. "Maybe they still need help." He gives Dojima a hopeful look, and is aware of both Yusuke and Nanako giving him identically pleading looks from behind him. "And if he _does_ have everything under control, it's not like we're going to make things worse by going to help."

"No," Dojima says, very firmly.

So Akira gives it up (for the moment, anyway), and spends the rest of that conversation, as Dojima talks to Kanami, trading looks with Yusuke and Nanako. Nanako looks the most reluctant to investigate this more, but Yusuke's expression is open and eager, and Akira's _definitely_ not going to sit around here and just not do anything. 

"You sound like this is normal for you," Kanami says uncertainly, looking from face to face.

Dojima raises his eyes toward the ceiling for a second before saying, "You... may not want to ask any more questions about that."

Akira grins, hiding the expression by turning away, staring very hard at the floor, and listening to everything she has to say. After all, she's the only witness they have to all this. If they're going to get any hints about what to do next, they're going to come from her.

So when Kanami talks about rumors of some kind of video on the concert website, that only plays at midnight and puts people into comas, he insists that they all watch it together. The video coming on at midnight makes things kind of hard--Yusuke is supposed to be home by then, and both Akira and Nanako are supposed to be at in the hotel room Dojima had gotten for the few days they'll be in Tokyo.

If Dojima hadn't agreed to help Kanami (who obviously doesn't have _any_ idea what's going on, and is kind of panicking) figure out what's going on, they wouldn't have had any chance. But they get lucky, because he does agree to help, and after he gets Akira and Nanako settled in the hotel, he goes out to meet a friend of his that works with the Tokyo police. That gives Yusuke a chance to sneak in and join them, and all three gather around a computer in the hotel's gray business center--half a room on the first floor with three computers and a printer--to watch the video.

Akira navigates to the concert's webpage, while Yusuke keeps an eye out for adults that would tell them to get back to the room, and Nanako tries not to yawn next to him on the desk chair. 

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asks her. "I know it's later than you stay up at home, you could go back up to the room." And not get in trouble, he adds in the privacy of his own head. He's pretty sure that Dojima is just getting used to the fact that Akira comes with a certain baseline amount of trouble. Akira knows that _he's_ definitely getting used to it--trouble just seems to follow him around these days. But Nanako is usually better behaved, or at least better at not getting trouble to follow her around.

"Mmhmm!" Nanako says. "You're not going to be fighting anything, right?"

"I don't know _what's_ going on," Akira says. "But I guess there's no fog or anything like there was in Inaba, so it's probably not going to be as bad as what happened at Christmas."

"Then I want to help," she says. Akira decides not to argue with her.

"What about you, Yusuke?" he asks instead. "Your sensei'll be angry when he finds out that--"

"I can't go back tonight anyway," Yusuke says smoothly. "We can't just wander around Tokyo at night." Akira has to admit that it _would_ be hard--it's not like Inaba, where a couple kids could run around all night without anything worse than some gossip from nosy neighbors. "And he's never going to know about Shadows or anything, so whether we do this or not, I'll be in the same amount of trouble."

"Just checking," Akira says with a grin. It's not like he wants to leave Yusuke out anyway. "Anyway, it's only a couple minutes to midnight and I have the website pulled up." 

Yusuke leaves his watch at the door, and squeezes in next to them to watch the web page. 

The last couple minutes tick by very slowly, and then suddenly a video player pops up out of nowhere, so suddenly that Nanako gasps and Akira half dives across the desk to turn the volume down. There's a horrible, staticky noise mixed with an eerie and off key singing, and he really doesn't want the sound to get anyone's attention.

"What _is_ that?" Yusuke asks, staring at it in horrified fascination. 

"Something not good?" Akira says uncertainly. 

They watch the video all the way through to the end. It's not very long, but the whole thing is very, _very_ creepy, and at the end of it--

Well, he's heard Kanami's story of how half a whole room full of people was pulled through a magic glowly portal by a bunch of ribbons. Which means that he's surprised but not totally frozen when thick, yellow ribbons come shooting out of nowhere to wrap around them. Instead he grabs Nanako and holds her, _tight_ , while Yusuke grabs his elbow and all of them get wrapped up and carried away together.

Wherever they're going and whatever's going to happen, there's no way Akira's letting them get separated. The ribbons tug at them, trying to pull them away, but Akira hangs grimly onto Nanako, and feels Yusuke's death grip tighten on his arm.

It doesn't feel exactly like falling through a TV. Close, but there's something missing, like the way the water always tastes funny when you travel. The air here feels different from the air of the TV World, and--Akira is relieved to see when the ribbons finally let them down--there's no fog.

There are other differences from the TV World, too. That place had always seemed like the set of a movie or a show, with cameras and lights everywhere above the fog, all hooked up to steel girders overhead. None of that's here, though. And he and Yusuke are still in their street clothes, not the TV World outfits, which is different too.

The masks are there, though. That has to mean that this is at least _connected_ to the TV World, right?

"Oh hey," someone says, and Akira spins around to see Yu standing several yards away, with Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko behind him. "It took you longer than I expected for you to get here."

Nanako squeaks in excitement and runs to give him a hug. "Yu!"

"Nanako?" Yu says, and then gives Akira a semi-panicked look of _why did you bring her?_

"She wanted to help," Akira says stubbornly. "And it's not like she's never been around dangerous stuff before."

Yu looks like he's about ready to start either lecturing or straight up yelling (and Akira mentally rolls up his sleeves and gets ready to argue--Nanako can't fight, but she's one of them, and after everything that happened at Christmas, he thinks she should be part of this). He finds himself bracing as if he's about to fight.

"Just stay over here with Yukiko for a second, okay Nanako?" Yu says. "I need to talk to Akira for a second."

"Huh?" Nanako says.

Yu ignores her and walks over to Akira, grabbing him by the sleeve and dragging him out of earshot.

"You can't just bring Nanako to a place like this," Yu says, when the two of them are as alone as they're going to get here. "It's dangerous, Akira. She's _seven_."

"She's not scared," Akira says. "I want to keep her safe too, you know." He _does_ , and he's going to make sure she _is_. "But she's a part of this, and she wanted to come." Yu's still giving him a protective look, so Akira crosses his arms and digs his heels in too. "She's been in dangerous situations before. We've protected her before. We--"

He's interrupted by Yosuke, who walks over to join the two of them. "Come on, Yu," he says. "This place won't even let us _fight_ the Shadows. Nanako's going to be okay, especially with all of us around."

"Hey," Akira says. "Speaking of 'everyone else...' where are they?"

"We had to split up to cover more ground," Yu says. He still looks less than happy about Nanako being here, but with Yosuke sticking up for them too, he's starting to visibly mellow a little bit. 

"And it doesn't take a whole group just to dance," Yosuke adds, so casually that it ends up not sounding casual at all. 

"Dance?" Akira asks.

Yu's the one that explains, finally relaxing enough to give details of what's going on. Akira waves urgently at Yusuke for him to come join them, and his friend runs over. "You literally can't be violent here," he says. "Not with weapons or Persona or anything. So far, when we need to get through them, dancing's been the most effective thing we can do."

"Hmm," says Yusuke.

"Oh _no_ ," says Akira, and the genuine distress startles Yu into a smile for the first time since he pulled Akira aside to argue with him about Nanako. "I don't like dancing," Akira mutters.

"Look at it this way," Yu tells him. "At least no one will see you. Apart from your friends and the people you care about."

Akira makes another unhappy noise and puts his hands over his face to hide the blotchy, embarrassed red patches spreading there.

Yu pats him on the back, and ushers him onward with the others. When Akira looks up, he sees Yu fighting to hide a smile.

The subject of whether or not Nanako should be there is officially dropped from that point on.

-//-

Yusuke is excited to be back in the kind of strangeness that Akira seems to always, _always_ carry with him. He doesn't mind the idea of dancing either, even if he doesn't think he'll be any good at it. But he doesn't think he'd be actually embarrassed, even if all he does is try and fail and find out that he has two left feet.

He stands back the next few times they run into Shadows, and lets the others dance them away. It's kind of ridiculous but somehow also just makes _sense_. The process is the same every time--it starts with a voice from nowhere, apparently the person that had created this place, shouting about how no one wants to reach out to other people, no one _really_ wants bonds, no one _really_ wants to know what the people around them are actually like. The voice calls Shadows that press in around them, not attacking but kind of... _suffocating_ , until one of them starts dancing.

The first time, it's Chie. She puffs up at what the voice is saying, argues with it, and then announces that she's going to dance. It kind of seems ridiculous, for a few seconds--and then somehow, it stops seeming ridiculous. 

She says she wants to show the Shadows why the voice is wrong. She wants to show who she is, and why that matters. And maybe it's something about the place where they're at, but it _works_. Yusuke can see what she's trying to say, and it's obvious the Shadows do too. While Chie is dancing, they go quiet, and they watch, and at the end when she summons her Persona as _emphasis_ , they dissolve and float away in a shimmering curtain of golden light.

The second cluster of Shadows they come to, Nanako jumps in to dance before anyone can even try to stop her. Yu looks nervous, and wonders (quietly enough that Nanako won't hear) if she'll be able to do anything at all without having a Persona to back her up. But she dances with wild enthusiasm, clearly having so much fun that she hasn't even _thought_ that maybe she should be afraid, and in the end the Shadows dissolve without any Persona getting involved.

After seeing both of those, Yusuke wants to try dancing, too.

There's something about what everyone keeps saying, about how they're dancing to show the Shadows how they really feel, that makes Yusuke want to jump in immediately and do--do _something_ that his sensei could never take. 

His suspicions of his sensei have been getting worse and worse for what feels like forever now. He's scared to do any drawing or painting at all because what if-- _what if_ \--he pours everything he has into the art, and then his sensei takes it and claims that it's his? It wouldn't just be taking paint and canvas, it would be taking everything else that goes into art.

Yusuke still doesn't know what to do about that. He doesn't know how to stop it, or even keep his paintings safe. But at least, while he's here, he can do _this_ to show how he really feels.

The next group of shadows, Yusuke runs in before anyone else can. He definitely does not know how to do it--there's lots of flailing around and trying to deal with just-post-growth-spurt arms and legs that he's always tripping over anyway.

The Shadows obviously don't care that he's never danced before in his life, though. Yusuke knows what he's trying to say, and when the dance is over and the Shadows disappear, he thinks that they do too. It's--a relief. It isn't painting, but it's a different way of showing everything he's feeling, and it's something that no one else can _steal,_ or _plagiarize_ , or _take away from him._

What he doesn't know about technique (which is... basically everything), he makes up for with sheer enthusiasm. And he feels a lot better, when it's done.

"You should try too," he tells Akira, after.

Akira looks more embarrassed than Yusuke has ever seen him, mumbles something, and shuffles his feet. "I did not know there would be dancing," he mumbles evasively.

"Neither did I," Yusuke points out. "But it's not so bad." 

Akira continues to look very awkward about the whole thing, and as they continue deeper into the strange, dance themed dimension where they find themselves, he's the only one that hangs back and just... doesn't dance at all. He's obviously frustrated with himself for not being able to help more, Yusuke can read that all over his face, but he stays reluctant.

And then things get worse. Yusuke has not been paying the largest amount of attention to what exactly their overall goal is. They keep going. They rescue some people that have been pulled out of the real world. They dance a lot. Eventually they meet up with the other half of Yu's group, and then not long after that they come to what looks like an entire real world arena, or a concert hall. 

"That's where the concert's supposed to be held," Chie says, when it first comes into sight. "Isn't it?"

"Is it?" Yusuke asks, squinting at it. It's true that it looks somehow more... solid? It looks more real than everything else they've seen here so far. "That's the concert you guys were all going to dance at?"

"Yep," Rise says, looking at the arena with extreme intensity. There's worry all over her face. "And I think..." She trails off, and instead of finishing, summons her Persona. Yusuke trades a confused look with Akira, who shrugs. Everyone waits in silence as her Persona analyzes the space around them, and then Rise sighs, shoulders slumping. "I thought so," she says. "Whoever set this up, they dragged a whole stadium full of people from the real world into this place."

The whole group trades worried looks between them as the reality settles in. So far they've seen plenty of Shadows, and a few real world people that they've had to work hard to rescue. At Rise's words, even Akira--for the first time--looks more worried about what they're about to face than his own awkwardness. Someone (Yusuke thinks it might be Yu, but he's not completely sure) starts running. And then they're all running, and there's no plan, just a general feeling of hoping for the best.

-//-

Akira had not been planning to dance in Rise's concert.

When he and Yusuke and Nanako got to this weird, Shadow filled dance universe, he _still_ hadn't been planning to do any dancing. There are plenty of other people to fill that role, he tells himself as justification. It's not like they need him to do it, and everyone else seems like they're actually enjoying themselves. Why should he do it, when they want to and he doesn't?

(Well, the growing, nagging feeling of guilt in the pit of his stomach that says it's _wrong_ to just stand around and not even try to help people in trouble is a reason, but so far he's been ignoring that)

And then suddenly there's a stadium full of people--there's _hundreds_ of people--that have been pulled in here, that are being threatened not just by the small Shadows they've seen so far, but by one Shadow so big it seems to swallow the sky when it finally reveals itself. The Shadow talks about bonds in a way that makes it obvious it doesn't know _anything_ about what it's like to have them. 

Bonds don't mean control. They don't mean forcing yourself or other people to pretend to be something else, just to make other people happy. 

So when they (inevitably) have to dance at this Shadow the way they had the other ones, he knows there's no way that he can sit back and not try to help. No matter how weird it is to be doing this instead of fighting, he's not going to just sit this out and let hundreds of people be dragged into that kind of creepy not-even-a-bond-at-all.

It takes all of them, together, to get through to the Shadow. And Akira finds out that dancing isn't all that bad, really, as long as it's with people you care about, showing something you care about to people (or Shadows) that don't understand. 

...it's actually a little bit fun.

-//-

Akira is a terrible dancer, Yu notes as the song finally comes to an end. He hastily bites down on a smile that Akira will _not_ appreciate, and focuses instead on everything that happens next--on a Shadow that agrees at last to bring everyone back to the real world, and on the sudden realization that...

Well, now they're on stage in the middle of a concert, back in the real world, and that apparently management's idea of smoothing the whole thing over is to _just keep going_ with the concert, even though there's now a crowd of people on stage that don't know the steps for the song that's starting up.

"Come on!" Rise calls, and Yu figures that oh well, she's the professional, and if she says to just go with it...

So they dance, all of them, even Akira (who--silver lining--seems to be finally having fun with it). And it's not as bad as it could have been, but also _maybe_ something Yu would have preferred to not have on the internet forever after that.

"You'll laugh about it when you're older," his uncle assures him after the concert, looking less than certain about this advice.

"Probably," Yu admits with a sheepish smile. After all, how many other people have memories like this? Slightly ridiculous, sure, but also just... fun, and crazy, and _oh yea_ they just happened to save a few hundred people from being pulled into another dimension along the way.

-//-

"So," Akira says.

It's the day after the concert, and things have calmed down... well, a lot. But the concert's still over, and that means it's time for Akira to go back to Inaba with Dojima and Nanako.

"So," Yusuke agrees.

They sit quietly for a couple seconds, letting the noise of the train station swirl around them without touching them. Dojima and Nanako are off doing something with the tickets, giving the two of them a few more minutes to talk. 

"So, at least we got to hang out?" Akira says. 

" _I_ liked it," Yusuke tells him, then grins in a way that's practically worthy of a Trickster. "I think one of the other students at the Atelier fond the footage from when we were dancing at the concert, though." He definitely doesn't sound too upset about this, though, and Akira feels himself grinning too. "Now he is moaning about how his reputation will suffer because his student dancing at undignified idol concerts."

"And you're okay with that?" Akira asks. "It feels like every time we see each other, you end up in trouble."

"Good friends are worth trouble," Yusuke says firmly. 

Akira's grin gets wider, but only for a second. "And," he says hesitantly. "We never figured out a way to deal with your sensei and him... you know. Maybe taking his other students' art."

Yusuke's smile fades too, and for another few seconds they're just quiet together. Then Yusuke says, "I realized something, when I was dancing with everyone."

"Something about your painting?" Akira asks.

"Sort of," Yusuke says. "It's just that--it's definitely wrong, if he's really taking art from people. Art is... it's a little bit like a Persona."

"A Persona?" Akira asks, a little surprised. "Really?"

"Really," Yusuke agrees. "When you put that much of yourself into something, it's..."

He doesn't finish, but Akira thinks that maybe he can kind of understand a little better now. Art is something that Yusuke lives and eats and breathes, but Akira has never been able to really understand it. He just doesn't have the same way of looking at things--but Persona, he understands.

"I don't know how I can stop Sensei if he wants to take a piece of my art," Yusuke says. His smile is absolutely gone now, and Akira can tell he's been thinking about this hard. "Or anyone else's, either. It's wrong, if that really is what he's doing, but... but he..." 

Akira listens, quietly, as his best friend tries to put something very complicated into words.

And then Yusuke says, "He can't take the important parts of the art. He can take... canvas, and paper, but he's not taking anything I feel. That's a part of me, and if I can show what I'm feeling through my Persona, or even through dancing, then it means--" He straightens up a little. "It means that even if he really is doing this horrible thing, and stealing other peoples' art, he's still not taking the part that matters. And anything he _does_ take, from me or from any of his other students--" He looks right at Akira. "I'm going to take it back."

" _We're_ going to take it back," Akira says. "We'll steal it if we have to."

And they share a smile that says _we're in this together, and we're going to do this. We're going to do this, because it's right_.

The conspiracy does not get much farther right in that moment, because Dojima and Nanako come back to collect Akira and catch the train.

"Enough of that look," he tells the two of them, raising his eyebrows. "I know that look, Akira. It means you're planning trouble."

"What?" Akira asks, looking up at him with exaggerated, wide eyed innocence. " _Us_?"

His unofficial guardian groans. "Well, whatever trouble you're planning, it can wait until the next time you see each other, alright? We need to catch the train."

And so trouble is put on hold.

For now, anyway.


End file.
